Day 10 – Jul 1, 2019 Huacalera, Argentina

We started our full day in Quebrada de Humahuaca by hiking the trail Quebrada de Las Senoritas near the town of Uquia.  It was not a long hike but just enough to get us deep in the red sandstone country.  We met several die-hard wilderness adventurers packing up their tents and biking out!  They even told us it was not too cold last night even though it was below 5C!  Over the distance, we saw several mountains shaped like cake layers.  Even the cloud mist on top of the mountain was tinted red.  Back to the town Uquia, the small church there is known for its paintings of angels with flamingo wings.  Unfortunately, no photo was allowed.

Amazing mountains formed with layers of different rocks

Doesn't this look like a layer cake?

Giant cacti greeted us at the start of our walk on Quebrada de Las Senoritas

Striking landscape with red rock on the background (and lady in red in the foreground)

These red rocks are supposedly some of the oldest rocks around here

A red sand desert formed by eroding red sandstones

The patterns on the red sandstones look like a modern art painting

Desolate but yet so beautiful landscape

A hostile environment that even cacti find it hard to thrive

This small church in Uquia is famed for its series of paintings featuring angels with flamingo wings

We stopped to admire the landscape of upper canyon of Rio Grande

This is why I will never get tired of high Andean landscape scenery

Next, we drove 45 mins north to Espinazo del Diablo (Devil’s Spine) near the town of Tres Cruces.  This impressive display of 600 million years of Earth’s history on its side is jaw-dropping.  Every layer represents eons of sediment deposit.  I wish we had the time to do some hiking up the hill and literally walk the history.

Getting closer to the Devil's Spine

600 million years of Earth's history on its side!

Every layer is probably equals to several million years

Panoramic photo cannot show the grandeur of the place

Back to the biggest town of the whole region, Humahuaca, we drove to our final destination (the one that I had been most looking forward to) Hornocal.  It is also called Mountains with 14 colors, about an hour’s drive (30 km on gravel road) climbing to 4300 m high.  The scenery up there is simply breath-taking (both in terms of its beauty and lack of oxygen).  It is hard to imagine the geological forces required to fold the mountain into this shape.  And the display of all that different colors is just absolutely out-of-this-world.  Even though some parts of the mountain were covered by cloud shadow, its majesty is still self-evident.  We stayed there absorbing it all in for 1.5 hr despite the cold mountain wind.  Seeing a wild vicuna running past us on our hiking path was an added bonus.

After 1.5h of rattling on gravel road, we arrived at the viewpoint over 4350m high

The weather did not cooperate.  Clouds started to form blocking the sunlight

We quickly snapped several pictures of these amazing mountains

It's frustrating that the dark clouds over the mountains never lifted

Desptie this setback, we are glad that we came and witnessed this impressive creation from God

It's windy and cold but we are happy to be here

My artistic rendition of Honocal

Even the cloud shadows cannot cover the beauty of these mountains

Ok, Ok, I cheated.  This is an earlier downloaded picture that started my hunt for this amazing landscape.

Scenic view on our way down the mountain

A vertical drop of 1500m